Pope says Christian joy rises above pettiness

10 May, 20113 - A Christian is a person of joy, but this joy is not simple fun that comes from short-lived motives, but is a gift of the Lord that fills one’s depth. Pope Francis made the point at his Mass Friday morning at the Santa Martha residence in the Vatican, that was attend by some of the employees of Vatican Radio. He based his improvised homily on the day’s reading from Acts of the Apostles that describes the disciples’ joy in the days between our Lord’s Ascension and Pentecost. Fun is good, the Pope said, but everything is not fun. Christian joy, the Pope said, is something much more, something else. Trying to have fun always leads to lightness, superficiality and a state that lacks Christian wisdom which makes a fool of ourselves. Instead, joy is a gift of the Lord that fills us from inside. It’s an anointing of the Spirit that assures us that Jesus is with us and with the Father. Explaining further, the Holy Father said we cannot bottle up joy for ourselves always, in which case he said we will fall sick, our heart will become a wrinkled and our face will not radiate the great joy but only a nostalgia and melancholy that is not healthy. “Sometimes the melancholic faces of Christians resemble pickled chillies more than the joy of a beautiful life,” the Pope said. According to him, joy is really a virtue of the great who rise above human meanness and pettiness. It is a gift that leads us to the virtue of large-heartedness, of breath, of forging ahead filled by the Holy Spirit